If you live in a part of the Valley near agricultural land, you might recognize the intense glare of a certain yellow-eyed, ground-dwelling predator that stands just 9 inches off the ground.
The burrowing owl is one of Arizona’s smaller owl species, and the only raptor in North America that nests entirely underground. And because these little guys spend a lot of time close to the earth and often hunt during daylight hours, they’re not hard to spot if you know where to look.
But if you’re a downtown Phoenix denizen or a Scottsdale suburbanite, you may not have even known they were here. That’s because the lands burrowing owls tend to occupy, especially agricultural fields, have mostly vanished in favor of concrete urban sprawl.
